


You Got a Friend in Me

by hermione_vader



Series: Plastic Armor [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Dark Knight Rises (2012), Deadpool (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Fluff, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 16:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hermione_vader/pseuds/hermione_vader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Avengers/Toy Story fusion AU.  Steve escapes Sunnyside, but ends up with a five-year-old boy named Nick, who takes him home and introduces him to a new group of toys.  They're a ton of fun, but they're not Phil's toys.  And why are they all terrified of the word "Sunnyside"?  Part 5 in the Plastic Armor series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Got a Friend in Me

Steve shuffled across the roof's slate tiles and stared down at the daycare's freshly watered lawn.  He'd had to climb up here because he couldn't get through the front door without being seen.  He could make the jump.  It wasn't that high, really.  And he _had_ to get back to Phil.  He was so close to freedom.  So close.  
  
Steve leapt.  
  
And landed in a tree.  The leaves and branches brushed and slapped his sides as he fell farther and farther...until he stopped.  He tried to break free, but his right leg lodged itself between two intertwined branches.  Steve twisted and shook, but they wouldn't give.  He thrashed around for several minutes until his strength left him and he hung there, wondering if this was it.  Maybe he wasn't supposed to go to college with Phil.  Maybe Phil wouldn't even miss him.  
  
Then a small hand yanked him downward and twisted his leg out of its niche.  A little black boy with a gauze eyepatch smiled down at him, revealing two perfect rows of baby teeth.  
  
"A Captain America!  Cool!" the boy exclaimed.  The he shoved Steve into his backpack on top of a half-eaten banana and a copy of _Junie B. Jones and the Stupid, Smelly Bus_.  
  
Steve jostled around in the bag and he feet fell into the banana remains twice until the boy set the pack back down, probably in a car.  This was smaller than Phil's backpacks had been, but this boy was maybe about five, younger than Phil had been when he took Steve on playdates.  Steve pushed the fabric back and sat down on the book to wipe the banana mush off his feet while the car floor hummed.  He was nearly done when the car stopped humming and he fell backwards when the boy jerked the backpack up and hurried forward, most likely into his house.  Steve's legs dropped into the mush three more times while he listened to little feet clamber up the stairs.  He hadn't realized how much he missed that sound.  
  
The backpack plopped onto a hard surface and the boy pulled Steve out, not even noticing his mush-covered legs.  He sat Steve up on a small wooden table and placed a red-and-black action figure and a female warrior doll in front of him.  The kid joined their hands and put another doll in front of them, an old man in a purple cape and helmet.  He moved the old man first and the game began.

"'Brad, do you take Angelina to be your wife?' 'I do.' 'Do you, Angelina, take Brad to be your husband?' 'I---'"  The kid slammed Steve into the red-and-black doll.  It hurt, but Phil had put him through worse in the old days.  "'She can't marry you, stupid-head!  She's still married to me!'"  The boy jumped around and grabbed another action figure, a masked man in a removable fur-lined coat.  He lowered his voice when he put this one on the table.  "'NOBODY'S GETTING MARRIED.  YOU TWO WILL USE YOUR SUPERSPY POWERS TO HELP ME AND THE CAPTAIN CAN DIE IN MY SHARK PIT.  BANE BRINGS LIBERATION.  I WILL WIN!"  The kid made the masked man kick Steve and the red-and-black figure in their faces.  Still not the worst hit he'd ever taken.  
  
"Nick!" a voice called from down the hall.  "Can you come here?"  
  
"Yeah, Dad!" the boy answered.  He put the masked man down and ran out of his bedroom.  As soon as the door clicked shut, the masked man and the red-and-black one pulled Steve up.  
  
"Hello there, Captain, wasn't it?  Glad to have you here.  I'm Bane, Gotham's Reckoning---don't let the mask scare you.  It's welded on," the masked man told him in a low, garbled voice that remind Steve of a Darth Vader doll he'd once met at one of Phil's friends' houses.  Bane shook his hand and motioned to the red-and-black figure.  "This is Deadpool, the Mercenary with the Mouth."  
  
"EEEEE!!!  It's you!  It's you!  It's you!!!"  Deadpool trapped Steve in a gigantic hug.  "You're awesome and fantastic and I can't believe you'd grace us with your presence!"  Then Deadpool doubled over and clutched his head.  "Oh God, I can't handle all the meta!  It's too insanely wonderful!  Or maybe wonderfully insane?  I'll figure it out later!"  
  
Bane gestured to the old man and the warrior woman.  "And these are my other colleagues: Magneto, the Master of Magnetism, and Lady Sif, who needs no nickname."  
  
Magneto nodded curtly at Steve.  "I echo all of Bane's sentiments: you are quite welcome here."  
  
Lady Sif's face lit up with excitment and she whipped her black ponytail around, hitting Deadpool in the face.  "So who are you?  And where do you hail from?"  
  
Steve blinked and took a deep breath.  "I'm Steve Rogers.  Captain America.  I hail from, uh, Phil's bedroom."  
  
Nick's toys exchanged glances.   
  
"Captain America?  Really?" Bane asked.  
  
"HeisheisHEIS!!!" Deadpool jumped up and down, waving his arms over his head.  "That's the big reveal!  The other reveal is that---" Lady Sif put her hand over his mouth.  
  
"Don't listen to him.  He often babbles," she said.  
  
While Deadpool tried to wrestle Lady Sif's hand off of his mouth, Steve watched Bane hop over to the toy chest and call down to another toy.  
  
"Sergeant!  Sergeant, wake up!  You must come and see this!" Bane shouted down into a sea of Hot Wheels and building blocks.  "I think you'll like this new fellow!"  
  
"Yes, come and welcome him, Sergeant!" Magneto called out.  
  
"Why?" a half-awake voice croaked from the depths of the toy chest.  
  
"Just come and see!  It's a surprise!" Bane said as he pulled a soldier doll out of the chest.  Steve stared at the soldier as he got closed.  He recognized the face, though he'd given up hopes of meeting one of these a long time ago.  
  
"Hey, there!  Great to meet you.  Nice to have another officer on board."  The soldier held his hand out.  "Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.  You can call me Bucky."  
  
"Captain America."  Steve rushed forward and pulled the Bucky doll into a big hug.  He wished the Commandos could see this.  He wished all of the others could see this.  Then he felt the other toys' eyes boring into the back of his neck and he let go, shaking Bucky's hand.  "Uh.  It's very nice to meet you, too."

Bane slapped Bucky on the back.  "See, Sergeant?  You _can_ get what you wish for."  
  
Steve blinked.  "Wait, what?"  
  
"Bucky here fumed for a week last Christmas when Nick unwrapped me and I wasn't a Captain America doll."  
  
Memories of Tony's abrupt introduction flashed through Steve's mind.  "Oh.  I'm sorry to hear that."  
  
"Don't be, Captain," Bane told him.  He sounded like he might have smiled if he'd had a proper mouth.  "We've all reached a happy medium.  I quite like playing the villain, though it's nice to play a hero every once in a while, as I did during Nick's brief _Casino Royale_ obsession."  
  
"Wasn't that the week me and Bucky got lost in the washing machine?" Deadpool asked.  
  
Bucky whacked Deadpool on the back of the head playfully.  "Only because you wanted to go deep-sea diving in there and I had to find you."  
  
"You two missed the only time Bane bested me at poker," Magneto remarked.  Then he turned to Steve.  "What they're trying to say, I believe, is that you'll fit in here very well."  
  
"Yes, you will," Bane agreed.  "Nick loves spy movies, so you'll probably foil my plans for world domination while Deadpool and Sif try to make Brad and Angelina's assassin-marriage work."  
  
"We need therapy."  Lady Sif sighed and shook her head.  "And I'd enjoy a disaster movie plot every so often!"  
  
"Of course, Nick also watches soap operas with Jane, his babysitter, when he's not at daycare," Bane continued, slinging his arm around Steve's shoulders.  "So don't be alarmed if you and I end up eloping on Santorini."  
  
Steve slipped out of Bane's grip and backed away.  "I'd really love to play with Nick and spend time with all of you.  Really.  But I can't stay."  
  
"Whyever not?" Magneto demanded.  He jerked his head back, looking offended.  
  
"Well, you see, I already have an owner."  
  
Nick's toys gasped.  
  
"Did Nick _steal_ you?" Lady Sif asked.  "We know how to alert his dads that he---"  
  
"No, he found me," Steve explained.  "My friends were supposed to go to the attic and I was supposed to go to college with Phil, but we accidentally got sent to Sunnyside Daycare---"  
  
"Sunnyside?!" they all exclaimed.  Bucky's mouth hung open.  Magneto pursed his lips and glared.  Lady Sif twisted her ponytai.  Bane staggered backwards.  Deadpool fell off the table.  
  
"How did you escape?" Bucky asked.   
  
Steve shrugged.  "It was pretty simple.  After I climbed up onto the roof, I...what do you mean, 'escape'?"

"No toy ever comes out of that place."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"It's run by an _evil_ bat!" Magneto stated.  
  
"With a voice like cigarettes," Bane added.  
  
Bucky leaned forward and lowered his voice.  "Mr. J's the only one who ever got out, and that's because Nick found him, too."  
  
"Mr. J?"   
  
"The Joker.  He spends most of his time on the window sill," Lady Sif said, pointing upward.  
  
Steve's eyes followed her fingers and he spotted some sort of clown action figure standing on the white window sill, facing the open sky.  He reminded Steve of Tony just after he realized he was a toy, despondent and aloof.  The clown turned around and hopped down onto the table.  He was dressed in purple and green, and he even had green hair, but his face was more interesting than any of that.  His brown eyes sparkled with a wildness Steve had never seen before, but his mouth was even more fascinating and just a bit horrifying.  Someone had carved his mouth into a bright red, permanent melted-plastic smile.  This, Steve guessed, was a toy without love or care.  Completely feral.  
  
"Yeah, me and Batsy go back a ways," the Joker rasped.  His nasal voice scraped Steve's eardrums.  "We had the same owner.  Bobby.  He loved us.  Us and Robin, a big, stuffed bird.  Bobby loved Batman the most, though.  He was always the hero and I played the villain.  Dark and light.  We balanced each other.  Heck, we _completed_ each other."  
  
"You were best friends," Steve murmured.  Images of Captain America and the Invicible Iron Man versus Loki Liesmith and Evil Dr. Porkchop crossed his mind.  
  
"Bobby took us everywhere.  Everywhere.  And one day, we went out for a drive.  The family had a picnic and Bobby fell asleep.  We got left behind.  We learned that day that you can't trust a kid too much---they're careless.  They forget too easily."  
  
Steve walked towards the Joker.  "That's not true!  Not all kids are like that!"  
  
The Joker tilted his head to the left and squinted his eyes.  "So how'd you and your buddies end up at Sunnyside, Boy Scout?"  
  
"I-we---It was an accident."

"Like I said, careless.  And by the time we crawled our way back through the mud and the rain, Bobby's parents bought him a new Batman.  No Joker, no Robin, just a Batman.  Batsy couldn't take it.  Something in him snapped.  So he told Robin that they'd replaced him, too, and he left.  And we followed him because that's all we could do.  He was our dark knight, you know.  And then he found Sunnyside.  By that time, he believed he really was a caped crusader, some pinnacle of order.  So he arranged his nice little pyramid scheme, putting himself at the top, his Justice buddies just below, and me at the bottom."  The Joker gestured.  "I led a few resistance movements, but nothing much happened.  I couldn't introduce enough chaos.  And then this kid found me in The Box.  I'm grateful for that, but I don't trust him.  He's too flighty.  He'd forget too easily."  
  
"He's _five_!" Steve snapped.  
  
"Six on September the fifteenth," Bane interjected.  "Don't listen to him.  You could never ask for a better owner than Nick."  
  
"I'm sure.  But I have to get my friends out!"  Steve jumped down from the table and headed for the door.  
  
"You can't get in at night," the Joker called after him.  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Robin.  Sunnyside's loyal guard.  He sees everything.  You go in..."  The Joker snapped his fingers.  Nick's other toys nodded again.  
  
"Stay with us, Captain," Bucky requested.  "Just for the night."  
  
The other toys chimed in.  "Yes, please stay!"  "We'd love your company!"  "Yes, you make Bucky so happy!"  "It's better than getting your behind handed to you!"  
  
"Everybody survives their first night at Sunnyside," the Joker said.  "They're usually too shell-shocked to make a ruckus."  
  
Steve stepped away from the door.  Maybe the Joker was right.  He couldn't rush into this.  He needed a strategy.  And he needed a bit of time.  "Alright, I'll stay.  One night only, though."

Nick's toys clapped and cheered, except for the Joker, who nodded curtly.  He returned to his window sill while everyone else gathered around Steve.  They asked him about his friends and he told them about Tony and Thor and Loki and Mystique and the others and how it was in the old days, when Phil was in elementary school.  
  
"You have a Thor _and_ a Loki?" Lady Sif asked, wide-eyed.  "You have impossible luck!"  
  
"A shapeshifting doll?" Magneto said.  "How intriguing."  
  
"Tell us more!  Tell us more!" Deadpool interjected.  "You need to visit again sometime, Chris."  
  
"My name is Steve," Steve corrected.  
  
Bucky glanced at him and shrugged.  "Deadpool has his own names for us.  He calls me 'Sebastian' half the time.  And Magneto is 'Sir Ian.'  As if Ian wasn't already random enough."  
  
"He calls me 'Tom,'" Bane continued, "which would be fine if we didn't already have a Thomas."  He pointed to a blue train on the floor.  
  
"It's okay, Bane, I like it," Thomas the Tank Engine said.  Then he looked at Steve.  "You should stay so you and Bucky can be Really Useful together, like me and Percy."  The green train next to Thomas whistled.  
  
Steve smiled at them.  "Thanks, guys, but I can't, even though this is a great place.  I just have one question."  
  
Bucky turned back to him.  "Yeah, what?"  
  
"Is Nick really missing an eye?"  
  
They all shook their heads.  
  
"Nah, he got a cinder in it and it scratched his eyeball, so he has to wear that patch for a few days," Deadpool explained.  He glanced at his friends.  "He gets it off next week, right?"  
  
"Next Tuesday at 2:30," Bane said.  
  
"The one great thing about Bane is that I don't have to keep track of anything anymore," Bucky whispered.  "He's super-organized.  He borrows Nick's chalkboard and even keeps a day planner so we always know what's going on."  
  
"It's a pony-sticker day planner!" Deadpool shouted.  
  
" _You_ put the stickers on there, as a I recall," Bane remarked.  "But I've grown fond of them."  
  
"Still, it's a weight off my shoulders."  Bucky grabbed Steve's arm.  "C'mon, I'll give you the tour."  
  
Bucky was a great tour guide, but it got cut short when Nick came back and he started the game again.  This time, he did make Steve and Bane elope, but in Hawaii, not Santorini.  And then it turned out that Sif and Bucky were pregnant with each others' twins and they both gave birth on a plane in the middle of an air raid.  Bucky explained that Nick's dads hadn't given him "The Talk" yet.  Steve didn't care what the story was.  He just savored every moment that Nick picked him up, pushed him towards another toy, and made him do something.  He missed this.  He didn't realize how much until Nick piled them all in his bed and they began to fall asleep.  
  
Bucky clutched his hand.  "If things don't work out with Phil, you can always come here.  And you can bring the others, too."  
  
"Yes, they sound like an agreeable bunch.  We'd love to have them," Magneto insisted.  
  
Steve turned on his side.  "Thank you guys, but we have to go back.  He still needs us."  
  
"If you say so," Bane sighed.  
  
"Just remember that you have friends here," Lady Sif said.  
  
Steve would.  He'd have to remember that if he was going to survive tomorrow.  If he was going back to Sunnyside, he'd need all the friends and allies he could get.   
  
The last thing he saw was the Joker peering down at him from the window sill, his mouth shining like a twisted half-moon.  Steve squeezed Bucky's hand and drifted off to sleep.  Because he could do this.  He had to.  So he would.  Even if it destroyed him.  Because his friends were worth it, even if Phil didn't want them anymore.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [You Got a Friend in Me [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3852847) by [blackglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackglass/pseuds/blackglass)




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